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'Actually, they're in quite good condition,' Angela Tsoumanis, a principal podiatrist at the Margaret Dabbs Mayfair clinic, says. She spends the following 45 minutes talking about, and dealing with, my hard calluses, 'small fissures and cracks', verruca, seed corn and residual athlete's foot, as well as diagnosing fallen arches and the early stages of a bunion. If these trotters are in good condition, I can't think what horrors Tsoumanis usually encounters.

Margaret Dabbs is London's 'celebrity foot specialist', and 35 per cent of the bookings for her clinic's popular 'medical pedicure' are men. 'A lot of guys like the privacy of their own treatment room,' Tsoumanis explains. I recline in a plush leather armchair while she enthusiastically works through a system of clipping, filing, buffing, moisturising and oiling. My nails gleam - in a natural, manly way.

Next comes the more medical part of the session, which involves Tsoumanis talking a scalpel to the underside of my feet to remove layers of calluses (and that corn) - the type of work you can have done by your local chiropodist. Although she is far too discreet to show me what has been carved off my feet, I manage to spot a pile of skin that fills me with equal measures of delight and disgust. The process is pain-free, the results genuinely impressive. And the general foot-care advice given - from tips on moisturising (daily, but never between toes) to wearing flip-flops in the gym showers - is also handy.

It's summer. Weather permitting, by the time you read this I'll be wearing sandals without exposing something that might cause mothers to shield their children's eyes. Your nearest podiatrist should be able to do the same for you.